In recent years much interest has focused on injuries to pilots ejecting from aircraft travelling at 400-600 knots. These injuries are caused by the exposure of the pilot to the extremely high relative windstream and include dislocation or breaking of the pilot's arms or legs as they flail away from the pilot's torso.
While various attempts have been made to reduce these injuries by means of restraining the pilot's limbs, they have not been satisfactory for various reasons. For example, some of these prior art limb retention systems do not deploy quickly or reliably and some of the systems actually cause injuries by contact with the ejecting pilot. In addition, many of these prior art devices require substantial modification to the ejection seat or require the pilot to wear additional devices or to hook up to additional equipment. Moreover, many of these prior art devices merely restrain the arms of the pilot and not the legs.
Examples of such prior art devices include those disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,083,938; 3,214,117; 4,081,156; and 4,215,835. Additional disclosures are also found in British Pat. Nos. 927,913; 1,316,854; 1,570,283 and 1,567,385; and in German Pat. No. 2,653,369.